Re: [linux-dvb] [PATCH] Userspace tuner

Johannes Stezenbach
2007-09-13T13:17:57Z

On Thu, Sep 13, 2007, Markus Rechberger wrote:
>
> We currently have an implementation that works, although
> it works by downloading several firmwares for several devices
> or even several countries. This is not what I want to have in
> future since it's not needed and it's also hard to manage for
> distributors. All those differences could be adjusted by
> software even without module parameter hacks.

This argument doesn't hold water. The unpleasant point
for users and distributors isn't the "binary-only"
thing, it's the "no right to distribute" problem.
And that's the same for firmware blobs or binary-only
userspace blobs.

IOW, if you can get the right to redistribute a binary-only
userspace blob which incudes the firmware inside, why
shouldn't you be able to get the right to redistribute
just the firmware?

Or the other way round: Do you think your binary-only software
will be important enough so distributors will go through
all the trouble of trying to get a license to include it in
their distribution? If so, why wouldn't they do the same
for the plain firmware blobs for in-kernel drivers?

Johannes